The use of large storage warehouses is a common occurrence in order to maintain an adequate inventory of necessary products or to insure convenient distribution of products to outlying areas from a centralized manufacturer. Typically, a warehouse will contain a large number of racks situated back to back and arranged in rows. Goods are then stored on the racks until a time when they are needed and may be conveniently retrieved.
Such configurations of racks pose an extreme fire hazard since open racks tend to act as chimneys for a fire which starts near the base of the rack. This chimney effect acts to promote the spreading of a fire and the destruction of the warehouse and everything within the warehouse. In addition, it is desirable to have a means to prevent goods from one rack from being inadvertently mixed with goods on an adjacent rack or from falling off the back of the rack into the small space between adjacent racks.
In order to limit these problems, some warehouse owners have attached solid pieces of sheet metal to the back of the racks through means such as riveting, welding or by other means. These solutions are unsatisfactory because of the limited flexibility they provide. In order to change the level of a horizontal shelf of a rack with a permanently attached back panel, it is necessary to detach the entire back panel or to expend a great number of hours to have the rack shelf disassembled and moved to its new position.
Any panel which acts as a back for a rack must therefore be flexible in its means of attachment to the rack. It is also desirable to make such panels impact resistant so as to prevent damage to the panel due to minor bumps received when heavy packages are moved.